


If this hasn’t broken me, I will never break

by smallblip



Series: Dear god we were beautiful [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Universe, Character's Name Spelled as Hanji, Comfort Sex, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Rough Sex, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:14:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29503941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallblip/pseuds/smallblip
Summary: Love is for suckers. In this life and the next, love is for the foolish, the reckless, the damned.So they don’t give meaning to this-thing between them, in full bloom like a rose amidst a bed of thorns. They find one another after each battle, this thing between them drawing a different type of blood. Until it stops altogether, the tenderness between them too painful to contain in two organic bodies.But until it stops, they called it comfort, they called it fucking to feel something, they called it defiance in a world that tramples upon anything remotely tender-Now they’ll call it holing up in an inn on the outskirts of town on borrowed time.
Relationships: Levi & Hange Zoë, Levi/Hange Zoë
Series: Dear god we were beautiful [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202135
Comments: 17
Kudos: 137





	If this hasn’t broken me, I will never break

Love is for suckers. In this life and the next, love is for the foolish, the reckless, the damned.

So they don’t give meaning to this-

thing between them, in full bloom like a rose amidst a bed of thorns. They find one another after each battle, this thing between them drawing a different type of blood. Until it stops altogether, the tenderness between them too painful to contain in two organic bodies.

But until it stops, they called it comfort, they called it fucking to feel something, they called it defiance in a world that tramples upon anything remotely tender-

Now they’ll call it holing up in an inn on the outskirts of town on borrowed time.

Levi draws her close, and she feels like she's about to throw up. There are butterflies in her stomach and they're unrelenting. It’s been so long so he fumbles with her shirt-

_the buttons are on the other side. It’s supposed to be easier for you!_

Oh.

But she laughs when she struggles with his shirt too.

Her bolo tie comes off and something like relief spreads across her face.

 _Commander Hanji Zoë,_ they had said. She’s now commander and Levi abhors the look on her face. A look he recognises as a mix of fear and resignation.

So he kisses her in the empty hallways after the ceremony. He kisses her so forcefully that it comes as a surprise to himself.

“Levi-“ she says, breathless. And she looks like she’s about to cry.

“Shut up.” Levi says, closing the gap between them to kiss her again. If he kisses her she won’t be able to speak. Then he wouldn’t have to watch her shatter. He wouldn’t be left alone to pick up the pieces. Levi pushes her up against the wall, fingers grabbing at her collar, “shut up,” he says again for good measure.

“Run away with me...” Hanji says in a moment of bravery, in a fevered moment induced by the friction of two bodies. Levi is so close that she can still taste him. And she wants more of him. All of him. Until she’s filled to the brim. Until she ceases to exist. And Levi doesn’t need to be told twice. They leave a letter in her office- _we’ll be back_ , she writes. Words she purposefully etched on paper to tether her to the ground.

And they find themselves in an inn on the outskirts of the next town where no one knows their names.

“What now?” she asks, although she already knows what’s going to happen. Levi’s lips are red and swollen from kissing and things can only go to hell from here.

Levi looks at her, fingers tracing from her chin to her cheek, his palm follows, and she leans into the touch. “I will love you now...” he whispers as he draws her into his arms. _I will love you to the brim, until we are whole again, until you are full and swollen like a blueberry,_ Levi thinks, and after fumbling with her clothes he guides them both to bed.

He’s gentle at first. Gentle kisses layering atop gentle touches, tentative like the first time they fucked. Except this isn’t the first time, and Levi fears it might be the last, so he takes his time. He has his hands on either side of her head and he’s looking down at her with all the love in the world. But Hanji looks like she’s about to cry.

“What do you want?” he asks between kisses that travel from her forehead to the tip of her nose.

"I want you to ruin me...” she answers, already her nails are digging into his arms hard enough to bruise.

And Levi doesn’t need to be asked twice. He sinks his teeth into her shoulder, hand pressed tight over her mouth to muffle her screaming. The taste of rust and earth on the tip of his tongue as he kisses the damage. He leaves a trail of purple flowers from where her pulse is hot and heavy, down to her chest, down to her hips.

“Levi..." she says in between marking what’s hers, high above his collar so everyone will know. A fevered bravery induced by the friction of skin against skin, of running away and holing up in an inn where no one knows her name. "Ruin me...” she says again.

Levi retrieves the belt from his uniform to tie her wrists to the bed frame. He kisses her forehead in a final act of tenderness before he fucks her into the mattress so hard she sees bursts of white light. And Hanji thinks this is all the good that’s left in this world. To feel young and reckless again. To feel an irreverent snigger catch in her lungs when she sees their uniforms strewn on the floor. To see Levi put the standard issue belts to good use on her wrists. To see his shirt crumpled near the door, something he’ll definitely groan about later. To be Hanji Zoë again, just Hanji Zoë. To belong to one person alone. To be whole again- two faces, four arms, four legs, tangled atop threadbare sheets.

Her back arches off the bed so she can feel him deeper, until the warmth of his body spreads like fire through her ribs. Hanji has trouble keeping quiet. She’s always had trouble keeping quiet. So Levi wraps his hands around her neck, “shut up...” he manages between groans. He feels like he’s going insane, seeing the way her eyes roll to the back of her head. Yet she still manages to gasp out his name with whatever air she gathers through parted lips. "Please..." she whispers.

So he undoes the belt around her wrists and immediately she pulls him atop her. His chest is against hers now, and her arms are wrapped around his neck. They can no longer tell where one scattered heartbeat ends and where the other begins.

“What do you want, Hanji?” he asks, a whisper against her neck.

 _You..._ she breathes.

She’s only ever wanted him.

But there’s no time to think about hurt and affliction. Now is the time for pleasure. They rut against each other, proximity drawing him in as soon as he pulls out. There’s that familiar ecstasy again, and her eyes close in rapture. She feels like she’s dying.

Hanji is sated, like a cat lying in a sunbeam, the setting sun providing just enough warmth for her to doze off. She hears Levi’s breath settling, and she feels that familiar flutter in her belly. She closes her eyes and sees butterflies emerging from a thousand cocoons. It’s warm so they take to the skies with ease. She thinks of a story she had heard as a child- of two lovers, a shared grave, and the dance of two butterflies. She wonders what Levi would think about being a butterfly. To live three or four weeks, dance, fall in love, then die his lover’s embrace. To return to the ground together, food for the creatures that dwell in the mud.

Hanji traces her gaze over the ceiling. She wonders how it has come to this. How it always comes to this. Hanji had been good. When her hands stray between her hips in the showers she doesn’t think of Levi anymore. She doesn’t think of his body- sinewy and hard, yet soft and pliable under her touch. She doesn’t think of the way his nose furrows, the way his lips part, as he drains her of pleasure, of guilt, of anything that’s not him and his voice, gruff from saying her name. But every once in a while, she falters. They find each other again. And now an image will inevitably slip into her mind in the showers after they return home-

Bruises on skin, blooming like flowers; skilled fingers replacing hers; and a voice, hot and heavy by her ears- _Hanji..._ She scrubs herself raw-

“Hanji...” she hears it again and it coaxes her back to reality. She hums. _I’m here,_ she wants to say, _I never left._

“Hey Levi... Did you know adult butterflies don’t excrete waste? They use up everything they eat as energy so there’s nothing left...” she says absentmindedly.

Levi makes a sound that’s somewhere between acknowledgement and disgust. “That would save a lot of time...” he says anyway.

“What would they do with all that extra time?” She muses. This is nice. It’s nicer than fighting the urge to close the space between them every time she sees him, nicer than fighting the urge to tell him how she feels. Regrettable really, that it has come to this. That she guards her thoughts against him only to know it’s futile. So she falters. If there’s anyone in this world that knows her- if there’s anyone in this world that she knows-

“I can think of a few things...” he says, placing his hand in the path of her wandering fingers. He laces their fingers together like a trap. _I’ve got you now, I won’t let go this time,_ he wants to say, but there’s little point in empty promises. “Sorry about the bruises...” he says.

She chuckles dryly, “don’t apologise... I told you to...” she rolls onto her belly with a groan, everything will hurt in the morning. She props her head up on her hands and looks at him with all the love in the world. “Reminds me of the first time we fucked...”

Levi rolls his eyes at her poetic diction. Nevertheless, Levi remembers the first time they fucked. A complete mess of bones and nerves and soft skin pulled taut over muscles. They bump noses one too many times and Hanji had to stop them in the middle of kissing to laugh.

 _Sorry,_ she had said, _it’s the butterflies._

Levi knew what she had meant. There’s an unkind sort of churning in his gut, betraying his nerves, his lack of experience with anything beyond a rushed job.

Now his eyes trail over her purpling skin, the angry red around her wrists. Levi scoffs, “this is nothing like the first time we fucked...”

“Really?” Hanji hums, “the feeling is the same...” her fingers ghost his lips. They’re really nice lips. She could kiss him for days. “Only you can make it alright, Levi...” she whispers. And he’s alone again, picking up the pieces.

He remembers the last time they had given meaning to this thing between them. _I can’t do this anymore..._ she had told him.

 _I think about running away with you, Levi... All the damn time,_ she had said, _and I can’t-_

And now they’re holed up in an inn, near the edge of the world. Levi grunts, self-explanatory. The feeling is mutual. Only she can piece him back together. Levi shifts closer to press his face in her chest, and he breathes her in. It’s been too long and he’s afraid this memory will be all that’s left of them.

And Hanji feels small again, like a child in her mother’s arms, being told that boys are nothing but trouble. So she kisses a few girls, and then a few boys, and she figures she doesn’t want to kiss anyone else after kissing Levi.

Hanji chuckles, fingers scratching absentmindedly at Levi’s undercut, “what would my mother say?”

“She’ll just have to accept that her child has a thing for runts from the underground...”

More laughter and she kisses the top of his head. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to know the thug her child fell in love with is now Captain Levi of the Survey Corps...”

There’s an aching in his heart and he tries to ignore that this is ill-advised. That they will end up hurting again, inevitably so. But Levi falters. He thinks he can do this forever. “And if she isn’t?”

“Hmmm...” she dramatises, as if coaxing a child, “then I’ll just have to run away with him to an inn in the middle of nowhere...” She peppers more kisses on his face.

And Levi wants to stay in bed until his muscles atrophy. He wants to stay in bed until his skin fuses with the sheets and his mind floats between the ceiling and the beams holding the roof up above them. He thinks it would be nice if they could live like this for the rest of their lives, a pair of skeletons embracing in a room without a view.

But he knows this decision will haunt them for life; will haunt her forever. These four walls cannot hold them. Neither can the walls that cast a shadow they all live under. And maybe that’s the reason Levi loves her. Her eyes hold all the hope this cursed world has to offer. Of new discoveries, like the first time kisses mean something, like the first time she kisses him.

They are atop the walls and she’s telling him about her past, about the time she spent wandering this earth without him. And he remembers the story his mother told him about humans with four arms and four legs and two faces, so perfect and powerful that the gods feared them. So they split them down the middle, condemned to walk the earth in search of their other half.

He thinks about Hanji completing his sentences. He thinks about their jokes that nobody else can begin to understand.

They make such a good team that the others notice. Mike teases her about their chemistry. He asks her what’s her secret to getting through to him.

“Maybe not bashing his head in and dunking him in water?”

Mike chuckles, “I already apologised for that.”

“And you aren’t best friends by now? That’s curious...” she teases.

And now everyone they once knew are now ghosts in the atmosphere. But Hanji’s still here. 

_You will know when you meet them Levi, you will know they have your heart. You might not feel it right away, but when you do-_

“Say Levi, did you know butterflies can see colours we can’t see?” Hanji says breathlessly, before closing the gap between them and pressing her lips against his. She thinks of blaming the vertigo, it’s not easy being up on the walls and feeling so small. But she doesn’t. And Levi’s world bursts into colour. She has her hand against his chest, over his heart, feeling each flutter, like a dance of feathered wings-

_Of butterflies._

“Ah... I feel so full...” she says, lying back down on gravel and brick after they pull apart, head resting against an arm, “like a blueberry...” she continues. Levi scoffs. What a ridiculous notion. What a ridiculous person.

But he knew then, that with her he can conceive of a word so beautiful it shatters him into a million pieces. But they need her too, the others. And Levi doesn’t know how to be selfish.

And already she knows what he’s thinking of. Whether by some curse or by hallowed bond. She knows. They have to go home eventually. Hanji remembers the note she left, and she doesn't know how to lie. Sometimes she thinks if she tries hard enough, she will be able to remember when they had been one- four arms, four legs, two faces, so close she never has to live a day without hearing him breathe. But there’s still time. It’s safe here, no one knows their names. They are two butterflies dancing atop a shared grave.

So Hanji places her head on Levi’s chest, over his heart. There’s a thunder that stirs from within. She listens to the flight of wings- mirroring her own.

They never did give meaning to this-

thing between them. They called it comfort, they called it fucking to feel something, they called it defiance in a world that tramples upon anything remotely tender. They called it being whole again- an affliction that threatens the gods. They call it holing up in an inn on the outskirts of town on borrowed time.

Hanji calls it butterflies.

“We’ll leave when the bruises fade,” he says.

“Until then?”

“I will love you to the brim.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! Finally broke my Levihan rut! Ah I've missed this!  
> I hope this was somewhat enjoyable (I feel it's somewhat a mess thematically, but baby steps)💖  
> Written to Cayendo by Frank Ocean


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